Not only am I crazy (see my comments here for proof), I attended a job market meeting today (yes, I know, not until next year but I worry that my partner is going to be offered a lateral this year and I want to have something to send out) in which I looked at CVs that confirmed no amount of cosmetic work is going to make mine worthy of the short list. Then I was off to a meeting with a faculty member I hoped would be a good collaborator/mentor/#4. This particular individual gave me a "we'll see."
Given that most of the faculty I know from taking courses and attending brownbags have left or retired and that I am not around the department to maintain and initiate relations with others, I feel like I'm really in a bind when it comes to rounding out my committee and coming up with a list of recommenders (let's bracket the fact that I'd also like a bit of a shepherd and agent when it comes to the job market). Furthermore, I would find it particularly painful to be told by a faculty member I asked that s/he would rather not recommend me/etc so I find myself not asking. I know I'm not around and I know there are a lot of grad students in the department and I know that it's work to write those letters, particularly if you want to do it well and say something about the dissertation but I also know I need some advocates.
For now, my ego mildly bruised after today, I think it best if I get through some of the books and articles on the stack and finish my syllabus for the fall. No danger of assaults on the self esteem there.
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4 comments:
Are those job market meetings helpful? I've thought that if I come back to Madison the thing that I would like to get involved with as My Service Thing would be placement. I don't know if the people currently doing it have a stranglehold on it or not. I certainly think--and I'm not blaming anyone in particular, since I think there are organizational/structural causes--Wisconsin could be more successful in placing than it has been.
I find them helpful. In our first meeting we were introduced to the job market timeline. Yesterday we got some good information on how to write our cover letters and some good examples of CVs (my crisis results from the fact that they are good CVs of great job candidates).
However, the meetings are poor substitutes for a shepherd. I need to be shepherded.
I think that we get too little guidance on publishing, which should start well we start thinking about the job market.
That's crucial for placement, but when we start thinking about it it's too late and we're often kind of clueless how to go about it.
I agree completely, anon. I think a little guidance through the first article submission would be immensely helpful. I think a semester-long seminar on sending our your thesis is the ticket. The department offers a seminar on teaching, why not publishing?
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